is it legal....?

I used bone meal once. LOL. Dogs loved it and dug everything up where I put it. I have to do a dog test to see if they like the smell of anything beofre I use it outside. I liked using Milorgante but the dogs just love that stuff. It won't burn anything and you can just throw it down whenever but I can only use it where the dogs can't get to it.

No need for explanation, COREHHI said it all...

tropicanna, the alfalfa pellets won't really add much organic matter to your clay soil. If you want to do that then you'd have to grow a cover crop of alfalfa and turn/till it under for best results.

As for your wanting to mask the smell of your teas I bet the Plant Tone smells worse than anything else on your list, and you really shouldn't need many more amendments if you are using that.

Bone meal...I've used it for years. Maybe I feed my dogs entirely too good cus I've never had them go after my bone meal. Now they sure do like to lick my can of blood meal when they get the chance though! Yikes! No fun there!

I haven't brought myself to comfortably use milorganite yet, due to the many years of it not being considered safe in the food garden. Think I'll just stick with cover crops, green manure crops, compost, and alfalfa-based plant foods.

And by the way, sorry diehard for letting your thread go off topic. (It's certainly been mighty interesting though!)

Shoe

Thanks for the mention of dogs and bone meal! I was going to use it on the new bulbs, but those are in dog territory...Guess where the dog will be?! Crazy thing always lies down in the holes we dig for plants anyhow. Bone meal might be what pushes him over the edge, LOL! Choices: Fence and bone meal, no fence no bone meal...
Bev

This is so interesting!!!

How hot does it need to be for cotton? I'd love to grow some up here in a sunny spot for the novelty, but maybe it just doesn't get hot enough . . .

What do you think?

I believe cotton needs lots of heat and sun.

Yeah . . . . I was afraid of that. :-(

katie, cotton prefers about 80-90 days to mature. I wonder if you could start your seed indoors, then set it out (in containers) for your warm times, then bring it in to finish off. I often do that if I get a late start and want the bolls to fully mature and dry out.

Hoping you have a nice airy and sunny room to allow it to continue growing. With you being in zone 8 you most likely have the temperatures required and might have a chance but I just am not sure how long your growing season is.

Shoe

Thanks, Shoe. I might just try to start it early. We do have 90 days of "summer", but the "average" temp during those months is probably only around 70-75, with the cooler, rainier days in the spring.

I'm in Woodinville and am surrounded by big firs, but the house and yard are in an untreed meadow in the middle, so the cotton can have good sun all day. I'm guessing that the deer won't mess with a mature plant.

Do you have any pictures of yours that you can post - your description of the plant has me fascinated. What have you combined it with?

I think shoe meant 80-90 degrees, day after day durning the summer. the famed sea Island cotton was grown where I am and cotton is commerically grown here still. Durning the summer our nights are 70-75 and we go into the 80's for day time temps in May usually. Basicly May through Oct. is going going to be 80 or higher every day.

Oh . . . gotcha. Don't think I can quite get there . . .

Whoa, hold on now! ;>)

Cotton can easily handle 90 degree days but it is not necessary to have such warm days for them to produce. (Many plants will grow and produce in warm weather but when it gets into the upper 80's and 90's there is a lull in growth...tomatoes come to mind.)

Cotton, on the other hand, has been a crop over the years that has shown a definite income in those hot months and areas of extreme heat, however it doesn't mean they require it.

If you air temps, and most important, your ground temps stabilize and are at least 70 I feel quite sure you'll be able to grow a "crop". The pollen is what requires warm weather to be viable (70º ) not so much the plant requiring 80-90º. You'll get good plant growth, you'll get flowers, you'll get bolls and cotton balls as long as you have ample time to allow the bolls to mature and split. I think you'll do just fine, kaite.

Katie, below is a pic of the foliage of a plant (container grown I might add). Kinda purty, eh!?

Shoe

Here (hopefully!) is a pic showing the two colors of flowers.

In the foreground a flower at its white stage. If you look further back you'll see a pink (older) flower coming on...

Shoe

OK, Shoe, I try to do things as organically or at least as naturally as possible, but it's hard to know the quickest and I like easiest way to do things as I'm still a beginner. If you have any suggestions I'm open. now cover crops have always interested me for the fruits and vegetables, and I might have to try that this year if I'm not too lazy (yeah right, lol). In western NC red clover seemed to seed everywhere so it was kind of built in nitrogen, but here we're not blesssed with such healthy weeds, lol :).
I did ease up on the Plant-tone this time and maybe that helped with the smell too, it is the most foul smelling (and thank goodness cats aren't into foul smells). I had someone at a garden center tell me it wasn't totally organic (not that I've looked up every ingredient), but have had folks on here say that it's fine, so I'm confused about it but can't seem to get away from it. I grow a lot of tropicals, and I feel like I never get enough fert even with blood meal (12-0-0), bone meal (1-12-0), plant-tone (5-3-3), kelp meal (if I can find it), compost/composted manure, and wood ash when we aren't on burn restrictions. I guess I see people feeding their tropicals with really concentrated chemical ferts so I try to give them what I can . I started a thread awhile back on organic gardening about organic potassium sources cause it seems hard to buy a ready source of organic potassium and tropicals dig it.

yep diehrd, sorry for the hi-jack, you'll forgive us, right? lol

hey, those are cool pics, cotton is a pretty plant!

Hmm...let me say this. Working from an organic view/system "quickest" is not what you are looking for but you really should be looking for "consistent"...slow release, long term food source (for the microbials, for the plants, etc) rather than the quick fix that so many man-made fertilizers offer. Or you can use both systems in conjunction if you choose. (As for me, I'm a miser and don't care for spending money on fertilizers of the 10-10-10 variety. However, I must confess, last year I tried some on a friend's garden. I'd never used it before and wasn't sure about how to go about it. For over 40 years I've used only "natural" plant foods so it was a learning experience.)

On our food crops I still grow them strictly organic but since I've moved into growing/selling shrubs, bedding plants, trees, etc, I've found that the time-released man-made fertilizers work very well (Osmocote types) and it might be something you may want to try for your ornamentals. (Time released fertilizers don't tend to run off the earthworms like the salt fertilizers do, plus they are temperature released, which is a plus.)

If you want to increase your potassium any compost with a manure base will help you there, granite dust will help (but it is a very slow progress), legumes, etc.

I think you are on a roll and know more than you let on! You interest in your plants tells us you are a nanny, always looking for ways to make them happy. That's what it's all about, eh?

And in the end, a happy beginning! Yay!

shoe

I do tend to go for both short and long-term (lol), although osmocote I've not used in my gardens. I know it's not that bad, just creature of habit I guess.

I don't know if you've tried these or not (in 40 years you probably have :0)), but I grow yarrow and comfrey to sprinkle over beds and compost, both are organic sources of potassium and speed up composting dramatically. Luckily the yarrow grows so fast I can use as much as I want, and even though I get tired of how ragedy it looks, everything growing around it looks awesome, comfrey didn't do so well in the drought. Probably the best thing I've seen to break up clay was a lady I used to maintain her yard in college, she did cold compost in all her beds (would have me put food scraps in a blender before I buried it) and the soil was awesome, right now I'm too lazy but eventually... Haven't heard much about granite dust , and legumes? if you have a moment I'm curious. My daughter and I have sort of made earthworm bins but I read the article on vermicomposting last night and now I want to try that....the old man's gonna love me growing worms in the basement on top of everything else...lol.

Shoe!! Thanks for the words of encouragement.

The cotton has nice foliage and the flowers are unique. Thanks for taking the time to post pictures. The plant has such a history here in the U.S.; it sure would be fun and something to provoke conversation if I had a few in the yard.

Do you have a suggestions as to where I should look for seeds? Guess I should start planning a protected seed germination space in the house (away from those nosy little cat critters, LOL).

Tropicanna - I made a nice little worm bin in an hour (there's only one of me, so I didn't make it too big), but it's been cold and I haven't figured out how to keep it warm. I put the link for video instruction and pictures of mine on the recent vermicomposting thread. I just need to get over to the neighbors barns and look through the horse manure for some of the special little red wigglers. Can't imagine why I've been putting that off. :-)

Thanks for the suggestions for "naturally" augmenting the soils and compost. I'm trying to leave as small a scar on my little patch of dirt as I can. But I sure want it to be a pretty scar!!! Heh heh.

You'll love vermicomposting, Tropicanna. I use and old chest freezer for mine and it works great! And speaking of putting food scraps in a blender...that is what I sometimes do to give my pet worms a "special treat".

Katie, I've offered diehrdsoutherner some seeds; if I find I have a few more extras I'll contact you. Maybe this weekend I'll take time to go thru my seed larder. (And no, I haven't forgotten you diehrd!)

Back outside before I burn up all the daylight!

Shoe

I need to start foraging Goodwills for an old blender...that's been my excuse for the last couple of years anyway...lol...thanks for the encouragement, I'm sure my daughter will love vermicomposting when we get around to it. She loved the tadpoles turining into frogs in the water tubs : )

Thanks, Shoe. I'd love to have some of YOUR cotton. I'll have to start planning what to put with it . . .

For whoever's interested . . . found this site while playing around on the Web

http://www.cottonsjourney.com/Storyofcotton/page3.asp

Katie

that's pretty interesting

I grew some colored cottons last year and had huge plants by season's end. Start them indoors for an earlier start on the season and give them as much sun as possible. They love the heat.

They *will* attract weevils, so beware. By the time you discover the larvae, it's too late to save the affected bolls. I think I used Sevin liquid a couple times, but didn't keep it up, so I did have a bit of damage from weevils, but not a lot. No cotton fields anywhere close by, so those little fellers have good noses it seems!

Some of my plants were 5+ feet tall while others were shorter. I think that was partially dependent on the different types but due to the different soils they were in. The richer the soil, the larger the plant, generally. I didn't fertilize, but I couldn't see any evidence that they wanted any, lol. Give them lots of room as they will side-branch and crowd out whatever is in their way and if they are too crowded together, production is cut.

There were several colors of blooms, which deepened as they aged, but I don't recall any scent at all. If it was there, I missed it, I suppose, but if there was any, apparently I wasn't terribly impressed, ;-). Blooms first appeared about mid-July. I planted my seeds in the ground, sometime in spring once it had warmed a bit.

Good luck!

A pic of some cotton crowding out the zinnias and worrying the nanners:

A blossom:

Thanks, raydio. Crazy how the weevils are out there, just waiting for someone to plant cotton. :-)

very nice plants

Great pics, raydio! Love it!

I didn't have any weevil problems but wonder if that is because I grew mine in containers(?).

Raydio, what colors of cotton did you grow?

Shoe

Horseshoe~

I grew some green (not a deep green, mind you) and a couple or 3 shades of brown. The staple is *very* short.

Lucky you that the worms didn't find you!

R.